Thursday, October 26, 2017

At some point early in my career, someone informed me that women did not attend funerals in early 19th century England. However, while researching funerals recently, I learned that there was disagreement on the matter.

When we lose any one of our family, we should give intelligence of it to all persons who have had relations of business or friendship with the deceased. This letter of announcement usually contains an invitation to assist at the service and burial.On receiving this invitation, we should go to the house of the deceased, and follow the body as far as the church. We are excused from accompanying it to the burying-ground, unless it be a relation, a friend, or a superior…At an interment or funeral service, the members of the family are entitled to the first places; they are nearest to the coffin, whether in the procession, or in the church. The nearest relations go in a full mourning dress. It is not customary at Paris for women to follow the procession; and, nowhere do they go quite to the grave, unless they are of a low class. A widower or a widow, a father or mother, are not present at the interment, or funeral service of those whom they have lost. The first are presumed not to be able to support the afflicting ceremony; the second ought not to show this mark of deference.

We hope the hints relative to the nonattendance of females of the higher classes at funerals, will produce its due effect; it is a direct avoidance of a great Christian duty, which too often arises from selfish and effeminate motives of indulgence. Mr. Greswell ought, however, to have considered that if the females do not attend the funeral of their departed relatives, like the male mourners, yet they bear a far greater share previously in their attendance on the sick and dying ; and show a tenderness and firmness that the other sex cannot always boast: thus they are often incapacitated by distress, added to watchfulness, weariness, and even sickness, from attention to these last duties. This is a sound and legitimate cause of absence; but it is the only one.

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When discussing this on various lists we have come up with mixed answers. Some recall grandmothers telling them that female members of the family didn't usually attend the burial even as late as the 20th century in their part of the country( England/Wales). Jane Austen's sister didn't attend her burial. Women often did attend the funeral inside the church for those who weren't closely related to them. Village funerals usually included men and women. I think it was a mixed bag.One thing I found utterly shocking was that a nurse saw to the funeral and burial of a child and notified the parents by letter and the mother wrote back and said she hoped the nurse used the opportunity to warn the older siblings how they must always be good as they could die at any minute.Jane Austen mentions dressing her nephews in mourning but doesn't mention whether or not she went to the funeral for her sister in-law. In the movie Sense and Sensibility the latest one, I think-- we see Mrs. Dashwood with her daughters following the coffin. Dramatic but hardly a true picture . Not that I doubted they might have attended the funeral but that they were the only mourners. John and his wife and others surely were there. Considering the ideas of sensibility rife at the time, I would think the men would want the close female relations to stay away from the burial lest they swoon or become hysterical.

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A Polite Explanation

There’s a big difference in how we use history. But we’re equally nuts about it. To us, the everyday details of life in the past are things to talk about, ponder, make fun of -- much in the way normal people talk about their favorite reality show.

We talk about who’s wearing what and who’s sleeping with whom. We try to sort out rumor or myth from fact. We thought there must be at least three other people out there who think history’s fascinating and fun, too. This blog is for them.